Student engineers rebuild Katrina home

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Seven student members of Engineers Without Borders went south for spring break — but not to relax on a tropical beach. Instead, they spent the week in New Orleans applying their knowledge from engineering classes to real life by rebuilding a house that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Jamila Saadi, Topeka senior and outreach coordinator for EWB, said she heard about the trip from a professional engineering group in Kansas City and helped organize it for the students.

“We thought it’d be a great way to get our members involved and get hands on experience, especially with the construction aspect,” Saadi said.

Students spent the week removing nails from boards to be reused in houses and installing insulation in a 1,500 square-foot house.

James Iliff, Topeka freshman, joined EWB in January and went on the trip to gain experience using different tools and to help a community in need.

“It was wonderful to learn how to work with your hands and apply stuff that we’d learned in class,” Iliff said. “A lot of the stuff that was talked about in my intro to engineering class really came to life when I went down there.”

Jodi Gentry, Topeka graduate student and president of EWB, helped start the KU chapter of the group two years ago and said she hoped it would give engineering students a way to socialize and spark the interest of a diverse group of people.

“A group like EWB helps to attract women and minorities to engineering who normally wouldn’t be attracted to such a hard science,” Gentry said.

The organization is open to all majors and has more than 100 members.

“We really try to get lots of people from all over campus involved,” Gentry said. “Our goal is to have one third of our membership be non-engineering majors.”

Since the group started, members have worked on Habitat for Humanity projects in Lawrence and volunteered to help with reconstruction in Greensburg after a tornado damaged the town.

EWB has planned two more trips this summer to Bolivia and Guatemala where students will work on projects such as reinstalling water systems and building latrines.

Iliff plans to go on the trip to Guatemala to help educate schools about clean water.

“I think it’s wonderful that KU can participate in any type of community service, not only at home but abroad,” Iliff said. “I can hardly pass up any experience they give me.”

— Edited by Heather Melanson

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